WORLD-WIDE SERVICE

Shannon News, 9 April 1926, Page 2

WORLD-WIDE SERVICE

TELEGRAMS TO SHIPS AT SEA. VALUE OF THE RUGBY STATION. ; A new long-distance wireless service to ships at sea was started by the British Post Offices in the early hours of January 31. The opening of the new wireless station at Rugby has greatly extended the radius of the Post Office wireless activity; it has now become world-wide. The first message sent in the new service was to a ship at Port Arthur, and other messages, were to ships far across the Atlantic, in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and south of South Africa. The messages, though transmitted through the Rugby station, are actuary despatched from the Central Telegraph Office in London. They are punched beforehand and the perforated tape is passed through the tele graphic machine which sends the message over the land line to Rugby. The object of this is not speed, but the better formation of each letter, the messages being sent at a low speed to enable them to be read by' an operator. By the side of the transmitting apparatus in the Central Telegraph Office is a loud speaker, through which the re-transmission by wireless from Rubgy is heard, and the operator is able to check the clearness of 'the wireless reproduction of the message. Though it is first carried to Rubgy land line and returned by wireless, no interval that any existing appliance can detect takes places between the click of the key in London and the reception of the wireless reproduction from Rubgy. v The new service being designed for communications to ships at long distance, no replies can be received. They are sent out twice daily, at 12.55 a.m. and 12.55 p.m. and to ensure certain--ty of reception they are all repeated in' the next period following the first transmission. The messages to ships follow immediately after the broadcast of the British news bulletin, and they can be received by all ships fitted with continous-wave receiving apparatus. A similar service was formally worked from the Oxford station, but the range was limited to 3000 miles. The new service will ,i,t is believed, give communication with ships at any point on the high seas, however remote.